Psycho Babble
by Chisa
Summary: A school counselour comes to Hogwarts. See the characters problems, fears, hopes and dreams through their therapy sessions
1. Default Chapter

Psycho-Babble

Dr Rei Faraday

Hogwarts School Counselor 

Draco Malfoy looked at the words on the door of the new school counselor with disdain. He considered just going back to the Slytherin common room and skipping this whole pointless exercise, but decided it was better to face this than McGonagall's wrath once she realised he hadn't gone. Stupid Gryffindor, he thought to himself. How dare she say I have an attitude problem! Everyone knows that Potter deserves the curse I hit him with. I was doing everyone a favour. He knocked on the door unhappily. What a waste of time. But out of a choice of this or detention, he chose the softer option.

A pleasant voice said to come in, and he did so. The room he entered was warm and well lit. A young witch sat behind a desk, engrossed in a file that said 'Draco Malfoy' on the back. Intelligent eyes behind oval glasses looked up at him with a smile.

"Mr Malfoy. Come, sit down," she said, gesturing to a chair in front of the desk. Malfoy slumped into the chair, determined to be disagreeable. Faraday began to open her mouth, but he interrupted her.

"Look, if you think that I'm just going to spill all my innermost feelings and promise to be nicer to Potter, you can just forget it. I know all about you. My father is on the school board, he told me everything. You're a mudblood, and can barely do simple charms, you're practically a squib, as low as a muggle. And to prove how like a muggle you are, you went to a muggle university and got a muggle degree. And now you come to Hogwarts expecting to impose all this psychoanalysis crap on us and tell us its good for us. My father tried to prevent Professor Dumbledore hiring you, but I guess he felt Dumbledore felt sorry for you. So, please excuse me if I don't have any respect for you or your opinions."

He leaned back in his chair, arms folded, satisfied with his work. Take that, Mudblood.

If he was hoping for a shocked and hurt outburst, he was disappointed. Faraday raised an eyebrow but did appear to be angry or insulted. She leaned back in her chair.

"Well. If you don't want to be here, I certainly can't force you." She began to close Draco's file saying, "I'm sure Professor McGonagall will be able to think of a suitable detention for you instead." She smiled.

Malfoy sighed irritably. "Fine, I'll stay here." He glared at her. "But I'm not going to talk."

Faraday shrugged. "This is your time to use as you will. You can talk to me, or not, I won't force you. But whatever you choose to do, you're here for half an hour."

Malfoy pressed his lips together, determined to remain silent. Faraday watched him for a little while, then took up a pen and started writing something. Malfoy watched her suspiciously, and tried to see what she was writing. She looked up at him, and he quickly diverted his eyes and affected his usual haughty expression again. She said nothing and continued writing. Finally Malfoy couldn't take the silence and the curiosity.

"What are you writing about me?" he demanded, leaning forward to see.

Faraday looked down at the unicorn she had been doodling. "Nothing," she said, tilting the file up defensively. 

"You were writing something," he accused, "and I want to know what it is."

"I don't see why you should care," she answered. "I am just Mudblood, what does my opinion matter?"

Malfoy had no response to that. He scowled at her for some time, then looked thoughtful.

"Okay, I'll talk to you. It doesn't matter what you tell people about me, you're just a Mudblood, and my father will have you fired."

Faraday chose to let the insult slide in light of the minor breakthrough. "So… I suppose we should start with the reason you got sent here." She looked at a note in his file. "Apparently you hexed another student."

"That note obviously doesn't tell the whole story."

"Well, then you tell me. How did it start?" 

"Potter was insulting my family. I bet it McGonagall didn't put that in the note, did she? Everything that Potter does wrong is always glossed over. I insulted him back. We both aimed hexes at each other, my aim is just superior to his, so he missed and I hit him with a fireball. Of course I got all the blame. Potter breaks all the rules, but the teachers just let him."

"So Potter… Harry Potter is it? He didn't get punished by McGonagall at all? That does seem a little unfair."

"Well… not exactly. McGonagall gave him the same choice as me," he admitted. "He chose the detention. He said he preferred cleaning windows than having his brain picked apart and analysed," he continued, never missing a chance to poison someone's (often misguided, he thought) opinion of his rival.

"Seems fair enough to me."

"Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good example. But there have definitely been times when Potter has even been rewarded for breaking rules. He just thinks he's above everyone else, that he can get away with anything just because he's famous and a Gryffindor… what are you writing?"

Faraday finished what she was writing and looked up. "Just that you seem to hold a real grudge against Mr Potter. I would like to meet him sometime. By the way, how do you know what he thinks? Can you read his mind? Does he confess these things to you himself? Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to judge."

Malfoy looked away, angry. "He judged me right from the start, why should I allow him a luxury that he didn't allow me? Anyway, I don't expect you to understand. Of course you side with him. Everyone except for Slytherins always do." He then smiled, as if an amusing thought had crossed his mind. "Maybe someday soon his luck will run out. Then we'll see who's laughing." He looked at the clock on the wall. "Half an hour's up. I'm outta here." With that he left.

"Come back and talk sometime if you need to," Faraday said to his turned back. He made no sign to show he had heard her, and continued down the hallway, out of her sight.

__

Draco Malfoy 

Session One 4th June 1996

It's almost as bad as Professor Dumbledore had feared for this one. He is as arrogant and obnoxious as his father, who it seems has taught him to despise all muggle-born, including myself. His grudge against Harry Potter only makes this worse. Whether or not the favoritism he alleges is real or not I have yet to determine. But he's not completely lost. There may be enough good in him to salvage yet. I haven't spoken to him enough to be able to tell. But I hope for his sake that there is.

Author's Note 

So, what do you think? I think I'll do Harry next. Suggestions and criticism will be gratefully accepted. 


	2. Harry Potter and Assorted Hufflepuffs

Psycho-Babble

Dr Rei Faraday

Hogwarts School Counselor 

Harry Potter looked at the words on the door of the new school counselor and sighed. _So I choose to do the detention, and McGonagall makes me come here anyway, _he thought to himself as he knocked on the door. _If I had at least got Malfoy with that hex, it would have been worth it._

As he opened the door and walked into the room, the young witch behind a desk looked up from an extremely thick file labelled 'Potter, Harry' and smiled at him warmly. 

"Hello Mr Potter," she said, "Come, sit down."

Harry chose instead to stand.

"Okay, before you say anything else, I just want to make a few things clear," said Harry, his annoyance starting to surface. "I did the detention so I didn't have to come here. I suppose that McGonagall or Dumbledore think that I need to talk about my feelings and everything that's happened or something. Well I do, to people who know me and what I've been through and who I trust. You are not one of those people. I don't need to talk to you. I don't need your advice. I don't need you to psycho-analyse me, to pity me, to attempt to understand me or whatever it is that you are trying to do. I don't need you."

If Faraday was shocked or insulted, she didn't show it. She put down Harry's file and rested her chin on steepled hands, looking at Harry thoughtfully.

"Nobody said that you needed me. You seem to have gotten along perfectly fine without me until now, and I'm sure that you would continue to without me. But, since this is the punishment that Professor McGonagall has prescribed for you, you are stuck here with me for half an hour whether you like it or not, so you might as well sit down. You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to, but if you do, I'm here to listen." She looked back down at Harry's file again. "You have been through a lot these past five years," she said softly.

Harry sat down, but refused to meet her eyes, not wanting to see the pity that he saw in the eyes of many others in Hogwarts. "I don't want to talk about it," he muttered.

"Well then, what do you want to talk about?"

Harry thought about this for a moment before answering. 

"Let's talk about you," he said, looking up and into Faraday's eyes defiantly.

"Me?" For the first time, Faraday seemed surprised.

"Yes," Harry answered, congratulating himself on his idea. "If I'm going to get sent here to be psychoanalysed every time I have a detention, I should at least know a little about who I'm talking to."

Faraday seemed amused and a little impressed by his request. "Okay then. Well… I'm afraid my life hasn't been quite as exciting as yours. I'm muggle-born. My father is a surgeon, my mother is a famous pianist; my brother is a star Qidditch player. It's hard, sometimes, living up to a family like them. I used to go to this school," she said, looking around her affectionately. "I was a Hufflepuff. Didn't really have much skill for magic though. I barely managed to pass all my exams. After leaving Hogwarts, I went to a muggle college and got my degree in psychology. Then Dumbledore kindly offered me a job here."

Harry nodded, feeling his initial anger at having to come here fading, and starting to warm towards this witch despite himself. Looking at the pictures in frames on her desk, he saw a couple smiling and laughing, and another of a wizard a bit older than Faraday, wearing Quidditch robes, holding a broomstick in one hand, his other arm wrapped in a headlock around a laughing Faraday. 

"Is that your brother?" he asked, pointing at the picture.

Faraday smiled and nodded. 

Harry opened his mouth to ask her if she liked Quidditch too, but was interrupted by a timid knock on the door. Faraday called out to the person to come in, and two first year Hufflepuffs entered the room. One had her long blond hair in two plaits, and was sobbing uncontrollably, the other held her hand, looking troubled.

"Excuse me, are you the new school counsellour?" she asked.

"Yes, I am," said Faraday, moving quickly from behind the desk to the crying girl. She kneeled down so that they were on the same level, her face concerned. "What happened?"

The blond girl rubbed her eyes and sniffed a few times, then ventured a wet and wobbly reply.

"H-he's just s-so m-m-m-mean!" she exclaimed, and burst into sobs again.

Faraday's face darkened. "Who's so mean dear?" she asked, though from her face, Harry thought that she knew the answer.

The other girl answered for the blond one, who was hiccuping too much too speak coherently. 

"Professor Snape, Miss. He…"

"He called me a dunderhead!" cried out the blond girl, through angry tears. "And he said I was a useless, pathetic worm, and that I should give up any hope of ever passing Potions!"

Faraday stood up, anger showing on her face, muttering to herself, "That jerk! That's the third one this week! Why does he have to be so cruel to these children?"

Then she noticed Harry, who was still sitting in his chair, watching the whole performance. She glanced at a clock sitting on her mantlepiece above the fireplace.

"Harry, your time is about up, so you can go now. Come back and talk to me if you need to."

Harry nodded and got up from his chair. As he passed to sniffling blonde first year, he bent down and said to her, "Snape is just a sad, bitter human being, who takes out his anger on innocent people who happen to get in his way. He's a git, his opinion doesn't count, so don't listen to any insults he throws at you."

__

Harry Potter

Session One 6th June 1996

He is a complicated one. It seems past experiences have made him suspicious and untrusting of people he meets. He's quick to anger, seems to feel that no one can understand him. He's a private person by nature it seems, so it will be hard to get him to trust and talk to me openly. I hope that he is telling his feelings to somebody, if it's not me. Emotions kept inside could tear him apart.

Note to self: Find Severus Snape and confront him about the number of crying first-years coming to me after his Potions lessons


End file.
